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Trust board committed to improving dementia care

The trust's dementia experts were on hand to answer questions during a dementia webchat in May

Wednesday 28 May 2014

Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare NHS Trust are proud to have the first ‘dementia friendly’ NHS board in London further to every director and non-executive completing the Dementia Friends training during Dementia Awareness Week 2014.

Dementia Friends is an Alzheimer’s Society initiative, run in partnership with Public Health England. To become a Dementia Friend, the directors completed dementia awareness training - learning about the condition and how to improve care for people who have it.

The community health trust is committed to ensuring its workforce are able to provide the best possible care to local people with dementia - a condition which affects 800,000 people in the United Kingdom, with numbers expected to rise considerably over coming years.

As part of this commitment, over the next 12 months awareness training will be rolled out to every single member of staff - from front of house reception staff to the most senior clinicians.

Local care for people with dementia

The trust provides a range of invaluable services which help and support local people with dementia and their carers.

Michael Hughes, the trust’s health improvement manager said: “It’s really important that carers of people with dementia are able to stay fit and healthy and able to cope with challenges of caring for a person whose condition is becoming more challenging – it’s a key part of ensuring the maximum period of independent living for those with dementia.

“With more people receiving early diagnosis of dementia - maintaining or improving the health of their cardiovascular system is an important part of restricting the progression of the condition. In the case of vascular dementia, which represents around 40% of cases and where there are no significant drug therapies available – this is particularly important.”

You can find out more about the trust’s healthy lifestyle services and the free support on offer for local people at: www.hrch.nhs.uk/health-and-wellbeing or by calling: 020 8487 1745.

Championing Dementia Awareness Week

On Thursday 22 May, the trust hosted a dementia awareness web-chat, with NHS exerts and dementia advisers from the Alzheimer’s Society who responded to questions from residents of the Hounslow and Richmond area. The talk attracted 162 hits from members of the public who wanted to find out more on services in the area and shared their individual concerns on the condition. You can read the questions and answers from the web-chat event at www.hrch.nhs.uk/dementia-webchat.